AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) – Maine’s attorney general says a state trooper was legally justified in using deadly force during an armed confrontation in West Paris last spring that left an 18-year-old man seriously injured.
Attorney General Janet Mills on Tuesday said a trooper was called by dispatchers on June 8 after a woman reported seeing a man later identified as James Reynolds acting suspiciously.

According to Mills’ findings, when Trooper Jason Wing confronted Reynolds and told him to drop what was in his hands, Reynolds yelled a profanity and pointed a rifle at him. That’s when Wing fired three times. Reynolds sustained injuries to his head, arm and leg.

Mills said it was later determined that the hunting rifle in Reynolds’ possession had been stolen from a nearby seasonal residence.